A/N: Er, excuse if this author's note appears twice, as something odd is going on with my computer. Anway, all I really wanted to say is: I know it's short (blush), and...It's about Jack! Yay!


The What Ifs

He still wonders sometimes. He knows that he made the right choice. That he couldn't have the friends and "family" he has here if he'd chosen to leave. He knows that, and he wouldn't give up what he has for anything.

But every once in a while, something inside him twinges. Usually when he hears horses, or sees his old hat. He never threw that hat away, though after a while he couldn't wear it anymore. It was a little to much, to much of a reminder.

Whenever those twinges make themselves known, they also make him furious. He shouldn't be second-guessing what he's done. If there's one thing he knows, it's that second-guessing can get you in trouble. He's been in innumerable situations where, if he'd second-guessed himself, he wouldn't be around afterwards. But he can't stop himself from rethinking this choice, from playing that pivotal moment over and over again in his head, the moment when he agreed that it wasn't time for him to leave just yet.

He imagines being a "real cowboy" as Les once uttered in such an enthralled tone. In Santa Fe, where he just knows the sky would be more open, the horizon wouldn't quite disappear. He imagines riding horses that actually belonged to him. He imagines Santa Fe…

Most of the time when he thinks these things he's able to brush them away to the back of his mind, where they're allowed to sit in among the cobwebs and the dusty old dreams. But once in a while this particular dream drifts to the forefront of his mind and it takes considerable shooing to make it leave.

He shakes himself out of his Santa Fe moods, usually by putting the energy spent wondering into selling papers, or picking himself a fight. Sarah doesn't approve of that, he can tell, but she also seems to understand, though he's never told her about his twinges. He's afraid of…well, hurting her feelings.

Occasionally, he'll find himself staring at his old hat, something of a dusty relic now, a memory personified in the form of a cowboy hat.

That hat contains within itself years of dreams, hopes, and prayers about a city he'd never been to, a place he'd never seen. Dreams that endured through tough times and even the strike, that he's attempted to put away. He has put them away, they're firmly stowed in a corner - except for every once in a while, when he just can't seem to help it.

He knows that these twinges will fade with time, and with this new "family" concept. That'll take some getting used to. Though it seems a lifetime, it's really only been a few months - five at most.

This is his life now, and he loves it. He loves trying out the idea of brothers, parents…and a "respectable" girlfriend. These things are what make him up now, and they are slowly filling him to the brim. They just haven't filled him quite up yet, and so the spots that aren't filled are still stubbornly full of dreams of wide open spaces and glorious sunrises that fill the sky and still have room to stretch.

Those spots will fade in time, replaced by a family of his own perhaps. Replaced by Christmases with the Jacobs' family, and a fair deal selling his papes.

Those spots will fade and fill, diminishing from brief sharp pains to sore spots to scabs, a gradually diminishing twinge. And he knows that.

For now, he'll put up with it. Sometimes, he almost doesn't mind them, these reminders of how things used to be, because after all, it gives him a chance to see that not everything's changed, and that some things are so much better.

But he's not exactly an optimist, and he doesn't usually even try to put a "good spin" on it. He just lets the twinges come, and he lets them go, in and out.

He still wonders sometimes. But most of the time, it's okay.

A/N: As always, please read and review. Thanks!